Amway Physical Attacks/Threats

Ironic that item #7 on my agreement with Amway (http://stoptheamwaytoolscam.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/agreed3-1.pdf) includes a requirement I and those working with me, not physically threaten Amway or those involved with Amway. Ironic, because I don’t recall ever doing this, but evidence of Amway and those involved with Amway doing the same thing are quite plentiful. However, there is no prohibition of me defending myself, and I can assure Amway and those associated with Amway I am well equipped to do so.

The following stories are some examples of Amway’s physical and other non-physical attacks and/or threats against those who got sideways with them. In the meaning of this thread, “Amway” may mean the Amway corporation or Amway’s IBOs, as it is sometimes unclear the exact source of the threat, but since both groups are merely different mafia gangs, the difference has little to no distinction. The first story below also provides ample evidence of how dysfunctional and sleazy Amway is as a “company,” so it is provided in its entirety. The comments in brackets are my analysis/expansion on what the article states.

The power of positive inspiration. (Amway Corp.)

Article from: Forbes | December 9, 1991 | Klebnikov, Paul |

SNEERED AT in the media, investigated and fined by the authorities, Amway Corp. keeps growing. The world’s second-largest door-to-door sales operation was conceived in a basement in Grand Rapids, Mich. only 32 years ago and today boasts $3.1 billion in retail sales ($2.6 billion at wholesale prices) from around the globe. [The investigation is probably the FTC and Canadian authorities, and the fines are in the neighborhood of $50-60 million from Canada, where Amway plead guilty of tax evasion.]

To this day, Amway is owned almost entirely by its founders–Richard DeVos, 65, and Jay Van Andel, 67–and their immediate families. FORBES estimates the company earned $300 million last year aftertax and that DeVos and Van Andel are each worth close to $3 billion–although it is admittedly difficult to value a business that, like Amway, is based on ephemeral human relationships. [In reality, it’s worth next to nothing.]

Amway manufactures and sells soap, cosmetics, vitamins, food products and other household products and sells water filters, Coca-Cola machines, MCI service, clothing and thousands of other items through its catalog. There is nothing unique about these mundane products. What is totally unique is the size of Amway’s sales force: close to 500,000 [current size about 300,000 in the U.S., if the 2011 sworn testimony of Karen O’Neill, Rules Supervisor, is to be believed] strong in the U.S., 500,000 in Japan and several hundred thousand more in places like Germany, Mexico, Korea and Malaysia.

Altough the average Amway distributor sells barely $1,700 worth of goods a year, the sheer size of the sales army and its enthusiasm ensure success. [This is misleading, as most distributors don’t sell much at all, and included in the above “sales” number is downline volume. It is also gross profit, not net profit.]

In an interview with FORBES at Amway’s headquarters in its 300-acre manufacturing and distribution center just outside Grand Rapids, Mich., DeVos spoke at length about the marketing phenomenon he and Van Andel have created. “Amway is more than just a company, it’s a movement to help people help themselves,” says DeVos in a pleasant, low-pitched voice. “Nobody has ever traveled down the road that we have traveled.” [That’s because nobody ever scammed others on this scale before.]

The road has taken some odd twists. This year, for example, Procter & Gamble successfully concluded the last of four suits against Amway distributors for spreading bizarre and damaging rumors that P&G and its products were instruments of Satan. (“Whenever you deal with a million people you’re going to have people who overstep boundaries,” says DeVos, defensively.) [This was BEFORE the infamous Randy Haugen lawsuit on the same topic.]

Perhaps he can’t keep his eye on a million distributors, but he does know how to inspire almost every last one of them. The underlying principle is simplicity itself: Persuade the distributors that their interests and Amway’s are exactly the same. One must turn outside the world of business–to religion and politics–to find people who work as hard for as little financial reward as most Amway people do. [He “inspires” by lying to them about the Amway Tool Scam, even though he spoke out against it in the 1983 “Directly Speaking” recordings.]

Cynics would compare the system to a chain letter. [A neutral party would describe it as a RICO scam.] Here’s how it works:

Distributor A recruits distributors B, C, D, each of whom recruits three more distributors to work for them. If this recruiting pattern continues ten times–that is, there are 11 levels in the distribution chain–then the fellow who started the network, distributor A, would have 88,572 distributors working for him. If each of those people sells, on average, just $1,000 worth of products, you’ve got an $89 million marketing organization stemming from that one distributor A. [The main profit source is the Amway Tool Scam, not the Amway products, which are insignificant in comparison, whether one is speaking of those paying into or profiting from the Amway Tool Scam.]

At offices, health clubs, beauty salons, churches, Amway recruits. The basic pitch: Whatever your dream is–a boat? a fancy car? kids’ education?–it is within your grasp if you just devote some of your spare time to selling Amway products and recruiting other people to sell them. [And this is the lie, these are possible ONLY because of the Amway Tool Scam.]

In itself, the pitch is honest enough. [No, the pitch is extremely dishonest, because it doesn’t include the money made from the Amway Tool Scam, which translates into losses by 99+% of the distributors.] Some Amway people do become affluent, even rich. But not many of them. The lion’s share of money earned by Amway distributors is pocketed by 2% of the sales force, the organization’s 35,000 so-called direct distributors. [This is dwarfed by the Amway Tool Scam effect.]

These distributors typically have about 50 downline distributors channeling orders up to them. Direct distributors gross a minimum of about $35,000 a year. The really big money–bonuses of up to $300,000 and more–is made by a handful of kingpins at the top of the heap. [Plus the MUCH larger Amway Tool Scam profit, which is well documented to be 2-9+ TIMES more than their Amway profit.]

And once a network has been created, what’s to stop the organizer from selling other goods to the faithful? Indeed, the really successful operators sell self-help books, tapes and even investment schemes to their recruits to supplement their incomes. [And this should be the REAL central topic.]

Among the big distributors are people like Chapel Hill, N.C.’s Bill Britt and Charlotte’s Dexter Yager. These two men each run networks of over 100,000 distributors and are each believed to net over $10 million a year. [Probably WELL over this amount, not to mention the blood money they must pay to their downline Emeralds and above, lest they break away and start their own tool scam, which would result in no profit for the Britts, Yagers, and the rest of the highest level LCKs.]

As with any army, the recuits are expendable. [Of course, you drain their bank accounts via the Amway Tool Scam, dump them and find other victims.] Amway is a fluid organization. [More like blood letting.] Nearly half of the 1.8 million distributors who will be registered with Amway worldwide will drop out in the course of the year. [Probably more than half.] For those who remain, the average distributor in the U.S. will net around $780 a year in bonuses and markups from selling Amway products. [Let’s not confuse selling with volume to non-distributors.] But in addition to the products the distributor sells to others, he will also consume, on average, $1,068 worth of Amway goods himself. And he may spend hundreds of dollars or even thousands more on telephone bills, gas, rallies, publicity material and other expenses to expand the business. Some of the distributors may end up dipping into their savings, and a few may even run up debts. [More like most of them that are active.]

The real money is made not by peddling to the public but by recruiting for Amway’s sales force. [Actually, the real money is in the Amway Tool Scam.] There is great incentive for a new recruit to quickly recruit distributors reporting up to him. Which is why DeVos can say with some confidence: “We’ll expand not by selling more per store but by opening more stores”–recruiting more distributors, that is. [Recruiting more tool buyers, that is.]

Is Amway an illegal pyramid scheme? [I don’t know if it is an illegal pyramid, but it is a RICO scam.] As far as the authorities have been able to discover, the answer is no. That’s because the “authorities” are clueless, and it doesn’t have to be an illegal pyramid scheme to be illegal, and in this case, the Amway Tool Scam lies are what makes this a RICO scam.]

The fact remains: The average foot soldier doesn’t make much money for his or her efforts. This is where the inspiration comes in. [The real fact is most distributors lose a lot of money to the Amway Tool Scam.]

When he says, “Amway is more than a company; it’s a movement,” DeVos isn’t just spouting propaganda. [A bowel movement.] Amway promises, in effect: Join Amway, work hard and, with almost no capital investment, you too can become as rich as Bill Britt or Dexter Yager. It’s up to you. [You have very little chance of becoming a Britt or Yager, they don’t like to share. Just ask Morrison and gang.]

Few Amway distributors do not know by heart the inspiring rags-to-riches stories of the most successful distributors. [But very few know about the Amway Tool Scam.] Among the patron saints of the Amway movement is Charlie Marsh, a gravel-voiced former small-town policeman, who built a hugely successful worldwide Amway network. There is Bernice Hansen, the grandmother who was an accountant in Grand Rapids before she joined Amway and discovered her talents for sales and recruiting. Perhaps most inspiring is Dexter Yager, the stout; bearded former beer salesman from Rome, N.Y. [Why would a scam artist be inspiring? Who was he inspring to, Bernie Madoff?]

In a world where many people find little satisfaction in the paychecks they receive from big companies or public agencies, such visions of financial independence are often compelling. But Amway goes a crucial step beyond mere money. It offers its recruits membership in a community of like-minded people–entrepreneurial, motivated, upwardly mobile people who believe in their country, in God and in their family. “This country was built on a religious heritage, and we had better get back to it. We had better start telling people that faith in God is the real strength of America!” Richard DeVos writes in his book Believe! [Those are mere distractions to keep people from thinking about the Amway Tool Scam.]

Amway distributors are bound by a set of shared beliefs reinforced by myths, icons and documents. [They are also unknowingly bound by being lied to.] They are expected to read self-improvement books (popular titles include Believe! and How To Be Happy Though Married). They purchase and listen to Amway-sponsored inspirational cassettes (usually live recordings of their “upline” leaders’ speeches and seminars). And they are expected to use only Amway products in their personal lives. Internal Amway documents show that the average active distributor sells only 19% of this products to non-Amway affiliated consumers. The rest is either personally consumed or sold to other distributors. [The recent Woodward lawsuit indicates this is more like 3.8%, and by personal experience, even this figure is too high, as it is common for the upline to teach their downline how to fake the computer into reporting self consumption as retail sales to non-distributors.]

It all adds up to this: When you sell Amway products, you’re not working for a boss or a faceless organization and its shareholders. You’re working for yourself and for Richard DeVos, Jay Van Andel, Charlie Marsh, Bill Britt, Dexter Yager and all the other Amway people who strugged and made it. You’re on the Amway team, and it feels good to be there. [And let’s not forget, you’re being lied to, so it feels good while you’re being ripped off.]

Amway rallies typically resemble a mix between a rock concert and a religious revival meeting. The evenings are often kicked off with inspiring music–the theme from Rocky, say, or Chariots of Fire–followed by much audience hand-holding, singing, swaying and listening to testimonials. Some Amway leaders, such as Dexter Yager, are famous for working their crowds into Amway chants and for revving their audiences with inspirational speeches that last into the early-morning hours. [All part of the plan to distract people.]

If Amway seems like a commercial version of fundamentalist religion, DeVos offers no apologies. [Of course not, why apologize for that if you’re not going to apologize for lying to people?]

“For a lot of people, Amway is their only route out [of poverty],” he says. “So Amway relates right down to the grass roots, right down to where people live. You wonder why this mythology, why this rah-rah, why they scream and yell. They scream and yell for the same reason they do at a football game. They have discovered that it is fun to be around people who cheer other people on, who encourage people.” [The difference is they don’t rip you off at football games.]

One weekend this summer over 12,000 enthusiastic people gathered for a rally in Richmond, Va. A handful were wealthy distributors of Amway Corp.’s products; the rest wanted to be. [They wouldn’t want to be if they knew about the Amway Tool Scam.]

The meeting began with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. On stage, Bill Britt, the master Amway distributor who organized the rally, introduced the other top distributors, who had arrived in their Cadillacs and Mercedes, flaunting expensive furs and jewelry. With the introduction of each of these role models, the crowd cheered. [They wouldn’t be cheering if they knew most of those toys were purchased with the Amway Tool Scam profits.]

Britt, 60, was a city manager in North Carolina before becoming an Amway distributor. An inspirational speaker, he might have made addresses his message not above or below but straight at the average Amway distributor’s dreams: “I got tired of my Mercedes and I’d heard that the Lexus was a nice car. So I went down and bought myself one–and, yes, it is a nice car.” [Why not, he has plenty of Amway Tool Scam money.]

Britt normally lectures the audience on living clean, traditional family lives. “Don’t wear the pants in the family,” he admonishes the women, who make up half his audience. He glowers at the men: “Get rid of your pornography.” [Not to mention, “keep buying into my Amway Tool Scam.”]

This time he focuses on the visions of financial security. Britt talks of the multimillion-dollar business he has built selling Amway products. Hundreds of average working people–barbers, policemen, truck drivers, car wash supervisors, dentists, middle managers–are introduced, and many of them recount how they became successful and became better people with Amway. After each story the audience roars its approval of the proud witnesses. (“We have two forms of reward in this world,” says DeVos. “One is recognition, and the other is dollars. We employ them both in the Amway business.”) [But you lie about where most of the dollars come from, and distract everyone with the recognition “carrot.”]

After two days the ceremonial part of the Britt rally ends as the audience joins hands and, swaying gently, sings “God Bless America.” The attendees leave feeling good about Anyway and good about themselves. [Ignorance (of the Amway Tool Scam) is bliss.]

As DeVos puts it: “Our people are seeking inspiration all the time, as most people are. Some people find it in the Rotary Club, some people find it at church and some people like to go to Amway meetings.” [But you can get ripped off only at the Amway meetings.]

How did DeVos and Van Andel get the idea for Amway? As great business ideas often do, this one came to them by accident, and without much indication that it would make them multibillionaires. [They got it directly from the devil himself.]

In the 1940s Van Andel and DeVos were next-door neighbors in a Dutch-American section of Grand Rapids, Mich. DeVos’ father was a car dealer, Van Andel’s a garage owner. Both men, says DeVos, inspired in their sons an entrepreneurial spirit and desire to start their own businesses. [My theory is they were spoiled brats.]

During World War II the two friends served in the Army Air Corps. After the war they started a chartered air service, then a drive-in restaurant. [With spoiled brat funding from their daddy’s?]

Then, in 1949, they joined a small direct-sales firm called Nutrilite. Nutrilite was started by an entrepreneur, Carl Rehnborg, who survived on cooked plants and animal bones in a detention camp in China in the 1920s and had gotten the idea for marketing a nutritional supplement. [An innocent beginning.]

DeVos and Van Andel developed a particularly successful Nutrilite distributor network that eventually grew to about 200 distributors in the Midwest. But the friends were not cut out to be rungs on someone else’s distribution ladder. When Rehnborg and other Nutrilite leaders quarreled in 1959, DeVos and Van Andel pulled their 200 distributors out of Nutrilite and struck out on their own. [That’s when the real trouble began.]

Amway’s first product was Frisk, a biodegradable soap whose distribution rights they bought from a struggling Detroit chemist. Using the sales methods and distributor network they brought from Nutrilite, DeVos and Van Andel sold so much soap that within two years they had opened their own soap manufacturing plant outside of Grand Rapids. [Then they came across the master of all tool scammers, Dexter Yager.]

They added other products–cosmetics and cookware. Soon they were expanding across the country and over the border into Canada. The power of pyramid math was really working. Starting in the early 1970s, they expanded overseas, to Australia, the U.K., France, Germany, Japan. [This is when the Amway Tool Scam also expanded.]

DeVos and Van Andel have become very powerful men. Former Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan have addressed Amway rallies. Some senators have been Amway distributors, as have celebrities like singer Pat Boone and former football coach Tom Landry. all of these role models help inspire the Amewy movement with a patriotic and religious feeling. [I wonder how many of these famous people knew about the Amway Tool Scam?]

There were setbacks for Amway–one of them nearly fatal–along the way. The Federal Trade Commission began investigating Amway in the 1970s to determine whether Amway was, among other things, an illegal pyramid scheme in which newly recruited distributors lose out unless they themselves recruit other members. [Unfortunately, it wasn’t “fatal.”]

“That was really a ‘go’ or ‘no go’ situation for us,” remembers DeVos. Finally, in 1979, the FTC ruled that Amway was not a pyramid, but found it did engage in restraint of trade and misleading advertising. [And the FTC didn’t touch the Amway Tool Scam, unfortunately.]

In the 1980s the Canadian government charged DeVos and Van Andel with customs fraud. Amway paid the Canadians $58 million to settle criminal and civil charges. [Even though their accountant told them to stop scamming Canada. Does anybody see a pattern here?]

Is there today no snake in Amway’s paradise? There are several. [There is only one that overwhelms the rest of them, the Amway Tool Scam.]

As with a church or a political party, Amway must constantly protect its image if it is to recruit new members. In some cases, Amway seems to have taken concern for its image to extremes. [They must also try to keep hiding the Amway Tool Scam, which is impossible with the internet.]

Former distributors and Amway officials say that like many movements based on a cult of personality, Amway’s attitude toward any insider critical of the organization has bordered on paranoia. [The real paranoia is to keep the Amway Tool Scam hidden.]

Edward Engel was Amway’s chief financial officer until 1979; he resigned over a disagreement with DeVos and Van Andel on how to run the Canadian operations. That apparently branded him a traitor; he says he and his family received threats for years after his resignation. “It was a Big Brother organization,” says Engel today. “Everyone assumed that the phones were tapped, and that Amway had something on everybody.”

In 1983 Engel’s former secretary, Dorothy Edgar, was helping the Canadians in their investigation of the company. She was roughed up in Chicago, after the was told to “stay away from Amway.” Engel, who picked her up after the incident, says he believes her story. Amway would not comment on the incident.

There was extremely bad publicity in 1982 when a former distributor, Philip Kenrs, quit to write a damaging expose called Fake It Till You Make It. Kerns charges that Amway used private detectives to follow him and rough him up (see photo below). Kerns’ expose prompted the Phil Donahue Show and 60 Minutes to run uncomplimentary pieces on Amway. Amway’s recruitment dropped off; with it, sales plunged an estimated 30% in the early 1980s. [This is also the timeframe of the “Directly Speaking” recordings, which were probably a HUGE factor in the 30% plunge in volume. I was told by my former Diamond, Bruce Anderson, the “Direct Speaking” were to be handled in a seek and destroy manner.]

In 1984, another former Amway insider, Donald Gregory, says he started to write a book on Amway, but the company obtained a gag order against Gregory in a Grand Rapids court.

More bad publicity surfaced to hurt Amway in 1989, when it teamed with Minneapolis’ remainder magnate Irwin Jacobs to buy stock in Avon Products, Inc. as part of their respective takeover bids for Avon. Avon Chairman James Preston hired private investigating firm Kroll Associates to dig up some dirt on Amway. Kroll unearthed several lawsuits pending against William Nicholson, who had been hired in 1984 as Amway’s chief operating officer. Several days afterwards, Amway and Jacobs dropped their bid. [Dirt – meet Amway Tool Scam, it makes dirt look clean.]

The fact that Amway is a loose confederation of hotshot sales empires creates other thorny problems. In years past, several of Amway’s wealthiest distributors created independent empires that published their own magazines, organized their own rallies and even published their own versions of the Amway sales and marketing plan. [These are all part of the Amway Tool Scam.]

Known inside Amway as the “Black Hats,” these master distributors frequently indulged in excessively high-pressure methods of exploiting their foot soldiers, persuading them to shell out hundreds of dollars each for distributor-produced books, tapes and even unrelated products and investment schemes. [Again, the hallmarks of the Amway Tool Scam.]

The problem: If Amway’s distributors make a lot of money from selling such promotional materials (as opposed to actual products) to new recruits, then it again raises questions of an illegal pyramid scheme. [Not if you ask Amway, they see it as sellers and customers.]

In 1985 two distributors sued Bill Britt, Dexter Yager and Amway Corp. among others in the state of Washington, alleging they were “brainwashed” into purchasing enormous amounts of motivational materials. The case was settled out of court in 1988, but a gag order was placed on the court records and participants involved in the case. [Typical Amway style, hide the Amway Tool Scam.]

Says DeVos: “We’re dealing with many motivated entrepreneurial individuals who are actively seeking to improve their businesses. through their own lack of knowledge, they can run afoul of the law, or do things they shouldn’t do.” [DeVos is afoul of the law, not to mention basic ethics and morals.]

Why not fire the rascals? Says DeVos: “Whenever you terminate anybody in this business it sends tremors through the whole organization, because [the distributors] say, ‘Oh, oh, the company now has the power to kick me out.’ And all those people with the sole idea of owning their own business and doing their own thing suddenly have a spike driven through their hearts.” [The plethora of LCK lawsuits has taken over from Amway kicking people out.]

The lawsuits, bad publicity and government scrutiny seem to have taken a toll. Several of the old-line distributors now appear to have become ultraconservative in their recruitment of new distributors–bad news for an organization that grows with a constant influx of new recruits. [What a joke, the Amway Tool Scam is alive and well.]

Says one colleague of kingpin distributor Bill Britt: “Britt has become very conservative. He’s preoccupied with the FTC, with the legalese of what can and cannot be done. To listen to him these days, you’d think you were listening to a lawyer.” [I think he sounds like an Amway Tool Scammer.]

Fortunately for DeVos and Van Andel, there are fewer such problems overseas so far–where Amway has kept tighter control over its distributors. Amway Japan has expanded into a network with over 500,000 distributors accounting for $734 million in sales last year. [Such as the UK, which almost kicked Amway out in 2008, and now they don’t allow any Amway Tool Scam profits.]

Last April, DeVos and Van Andel sold a sliver–8%–of Amway Japan to the Japanese public. The Tokyo market values Amway Japan at $5 billion, a fanciful value based more on the tiny amount of stock outstanding than the business’ inherent value. Next foreign targets: Brazil, Poland, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Czechoslovakia.

DeVos is convinced that motivating foreigners is no different from motivating people in the U.S. “In Mexico, people will ride a bus for hours to come to an Amway meeting because Amway will give them a shot at success. Most of these people have believed for generations that they would never be anybody, because the rich guy on the hill told them they’d never be anybody. But the Amway business has come to symbolize for great numbers of people their chance to get out of their rut.” [And they can still be ripped off by the Amway Tool Scam to boot!]

As the sleep of centuries lifts from more and more peole around the world, as the dead hand of socialism vanishes, this message should bring recruits flocking to the Amway banner all across the world. [Just think how many more Amway Tool Scam victims are now available!]

Will the message continue to reverberate when DeVos and Van Andel are gone? There are ample signs that the company is preparing for that day. Several top executives have taken early retirement, and there are rumors that Nicholson is on his way out. DeVos and Van Andel each have four children; all but one–Richard DeVos Jr.–work for Amway. “My guess is that we will have professional management, at least initially,” said Van Andel. [We only wish, the founders’ boys took over, and things are as bad as ever.]

But can hired hands run a truly entrepreneurial business of this sort? Probably not. Amway may well decline when DeVos and Van Andel are gone. But there will be other Amways. The business is rooted in principles deeply embedded in human nature. [When Amway gets thrown into the trash bin of history, everyone will be the wiser.]

Here’s a couple of additional stories that discuss physical and non-physcial attacks, or threatened physical or non-physical attacks, by Amway associated people:

1. http://www.amquix.info/pdfs/Blakely_expert_report.pdf (See page 21, and note neither the Blakey report blames or associates Amway with murders and deaths, and I am explicitely NOT blaming or associating Amway with any of the generic references to murders and deaths that are mentioned in the report and common with the mafia, but the Blakey report and I are both are associating Amway with a variety of other mafia-like tactics described in the Blakey report, particularly the RICO scam Amway has with the Amway Tool Scam profiting IBOs.), and

2. In the Eric Scheibeler case, part of this former Founders Emerald stated under oath, “I had a death threat at the time personally. I was told what – by an Amway diamond what gun will be used to kill me if I messed with our [end of transcript] Eric was also sued by Amway for making some comments that Amway employees had threatened him with death, when it was merely a poorly worded, mistranslated, and/or misquoted statement that it was an Amway IBO that threatened to shoot him with a gun. Eric subsequently was sued by Amway and clarified the death threat came from an Amway IBO, not an Amway employee.

3. Mahaleel Luster, a videographer, stated in his lawsuit against Gooch, a Double Diamond, “On March 22, 1994, Luster was ordered to appear at the Gooches’ estate in Thomasvi1le, North Carolina. When Luster appeared Hal commanded one of Hal Gooch’s bodyguard, who was acting at the direction and pursuant to the authority of the Gooches, seized Luster’s car keys, and Luster was taken to the “trophy” room in a recess of the estate. A door in the ‘trophy room led to the grounds of the estate, but the door was dead bolted and wired with an alarm that would sound if it were opened…. The Gooches owned a virtual armory and always had weapons within reach. Luster had witnessed all of the Gooches, including Hal Gooch’s wife, Susan, emerge with guns drawn when they were offended because a maid resigned. Luster knew that the Gooches and their body guard always had weapons available, were easily offended, and were quick to draw their weapons when they were upset.When Luster arrived in the trophy room, Chris Gooch informed Luster that Hal Gooch was mad at Luster and that the only animal not hanging on the trophy room wall was a “nigger.” This statement was designed to frighten, and succeeded in frightening, Luster, who is African-American.”

41 thoughts on “Amway Physical Attacks/Threats”

I never thought about the subject in the manner you do, this gives it all a new perspective that makes 1 wonder if there are more between heaven as well as earth that certain would think, thanks for the input and keep all of them comming, I will watch and read every time for sure!

This message was received from IP address 66.169.74.240. Note this “person” didn’t challenge a single fact on this blog, all that was left was to call me a failure and an idiot. They don’t even know me, and I don’t want to know them. LOL

This person also came from IP address 66.169.74.240, but they tried to use a different name and email. Isn’t it sad they called ME a “failure,” “Idiot,” and now a “complete [f-ing} moron,” yet THEY were the ones who just proved that is what they are? LOL

By the way, I cleaned up the [f-ing] and their handle because cussing and death are not allowed on this blog, as per my agreement with Amway, the company that has ripped off literally millions of people for several decades for 10s to 100s of billions of dollars, thanks to the ATS. LOL

I doubt it, that’s what makes bad guys bad guys. They are too stupid to think, so they take the “easy” path and commit crimes instead. Take the ATS for example. I’ve met tons of stupid people at Amway.

But I’m sure the “foul mouthed stalker” is looking for the black helicopter over his/her/its single wide mobile home as we converse…LOL

And you’re welcome for the information, feel free to post any time. I’m not like other, inferior blogs that refuse to post comments that don’t agree with me. As you probably know, I deal with the truth, so there is no reason to “ban” anybody. In fact, I enjoy posting idiotic comments, it shows how stupid AND wrong they are.

Jone, for every person Amway has “helped,” there are thousands of other who have been ripped off via the ATS. In fact, those “helped” actually helped themselves out of poverty via the ATS. That is not an achievement to be proud of by any stretch of anybody’s imagination.

I am a former IBO, I started about the same time as you and quit about the same time as you. I agree with you on the tool system and the overpriced products but you seem consumed by revenge and anger.
Do yourself a favor and move on with your life. It’s been almost 5 years.
Go find another company that treats people right and attract their reps to a better company if you want to help people.
If you don’t want to do that find a charity to give time to. Expending all this time and energy is trapping you in the past
I was angry for awhile but I moved on and found a great company to work with. I hope to show other former IBOs a better way.

Chad, why did you stay with Amway so long? How much money did you lose? I am not consumed by either revenge or anger, I am educating others to not be scammed. I moved on with my life a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean I can’t continue educating others. I am helping people not become IBOs in the first place, so they don’t get ripped off. Or, if they were IBOs, help them understand they are NOT “losers, quitters, never had or lost their dream, etc.,” they were ripped off by a scam partnership between Amway and the high level IBOs, making the scam a RICO fraud. How do you know I don’t give time to charity? How dare you judge me without even knowing me. I am not trapped in the past, I am educating others. Which company are you working with now? Do you REALLY think many former IBOs are interested in joining you, or is it just hope, as you said?

TEX2.
I stayed with Amway so long because my close friends were in and I actually enjoyed my experience for the most part. I also felt the products were for the most part great but overpriced. I still believe nutrilite is one of the 10 best supplements in the world but there are others as good that cost 25% less.
I can honestly say I truely lost about 1k a year in the 7 years I was truely plugged into the tools and meeting system.
I hovered around 700 to 1000 group pv and did regular retail so I did make a gross profit every month before overhead and the tool system output. I do agree that the tool system is overpriced, outdated and turned my net profit into a net loss. I do believe I got some value out of some of the tools and that some of the things I learned helped me later in other sales jobs and in my traditional business ventures but it could have been learned at a lower price and the level of profit should have been disclosed. I agree with you on those points.
I sincerely apologize if you felt I was judging you. I was not saying you don’t do charity I just was suggesting that you might be happier if you took the large amount of time you invest in attacking amway and do something that brings you joy instead of something that riles you up and stresses you out so much. My intent was only to help you because I have been there and let the past trap me and when I let it go I was much happier.
I think you have already made your point. It is fine to educate people on the problems with the tool system and I think you have accomplished that.
The people who are still in amway and emotionally invested in their team and upline just don’t know there are better more profitable companies out there and ranting about how evil the people they see as friends are is just going to make them defensive.
There are a lot of good people in amway and I want to help them but I don’t expect to change many minds until they reach their own low point and realize it’s unlikely that they will ever make a profit. But I know that I am more likely to help a few by being a freind and slowly making them aware of the facts than attacking them and belittling them and their dreams.
If you set out to take away their hope that their current plan will help them reach their goals you need to offer them a new plan.
What do you think is a good direct sales company? What would you recommend they do?

So you looked at Amway as less of a business and more of a way to hang with your close friends and have an enjoyable experience? At least we agree the products are overpriced, at least many of them are, in my extremely well informed opinion. But this is common to MLM, and results in very little retail, which is a direct violation of FTC rules and defining an illegal pyramid – and this doesn’t even include the ATS discussion! LOL

If you were truly plugged into the tools and meeting system, you lost FAR more than $1,000/year. I am glad we agree about the tool scam, it is so obvious when you see the facts, it is a no-brainer.

How do you know how much time I spend telling others about the ATS, or how much enjoyment it brings me when people thank me for informing them? Why would/should I “let go” and let others be scammed? Don’t you feel ashamed you’re not helping them? There are many more people who never heard of Amway than those who are/were scammed, so it isn’t over until the ATS is shut down. That’s why I picked the name of my blog, to STOP THE AMWAY TOOL SCAM. I am also working to get the media and regulatory authorities to do their jobs.

My main target isn’t current Amway IBOs, it is those who haven’t been IBOs and those who were scammed, like you and me. I don’t know of a “good” direct sales company. I recommend they forget about MLM and do something else. At the very least, they will know what to look for and questions to ask if they consider an MLM. By the way, there are very few direct sales companies, most are MLM, and rotten to the core, just like Amway.

You dont seem to know what you are trying to do here. Please, of what clasd in soiciety might you be. Not a high class at all from.the knowledge you speak. Do not take up space as if important. This country has other problems then to deal with such person as yourself. Your ideas are not of a high class person. Who could take such person seriously.

Funny,and not in a good way how this mirrors the cult of,”$cientology.” Yep,people beaten up,threatened,forced into bankruptcy…Sadly,I could go on for hours. What hit me was that is MORE like a cult than NOT. Whenever somebody writes the truth about $cientology they have internet trolls show up to try to,”shoot the messenger.” Think how many lives you have saved! Thanks for being a,whistleblower! Just takes one every once in awhile to stop evil from winning.

Troy, thanks for your comment. There are definitely parallels between Amway and $cientology (love the $pelling!), as well as other cults. I tend to not emphasize this aspect for a couple of reasons:
1. While many aspects are similar, calling a business a cult often shuts down further communications, and
2. While disgusting, cults are NOT illegal, as they are protected under the freedom of religion 1st amendment, and my aim is to put Amway out of business from a legal perspective as well as from a public perspective. A couple of recent examples are the Branch Davidians and Warren Jeff’s LDS breakaway cult. Both of these were shut down because of reports of crimes such as child abuse/rape, etc.

While I am helping some people, we have MUCH further to go to declare victory. Right now, evil is winning. But I won’t quit until I win or my time on the planet has expired, whichever comes first.

I found this blog mostly credible, kind of angry, and often mocking. Not that your writing style is bad – but lay of the LOL’s 😉

That being said, I was in Amway long enough to find out about the profits my upline was making on the “Tools”. I was doing well enough that I was given a sneak peak at where (as my upoline called it) the real money was made in Amway. I dont think he was supposed to tell me, he was a DD and I was close, his upline had him going gold and me right behind, his emerald upline showed him the money tree – “selling books and tapes to your downline” my DD shared it with me thinking it would motivate me and I immediatedly walked away. It was at that point I realized that there are lots of well intentioned people in that business and most of them were being taken advantage of by the very few – emerald and above (the 2 %)…

I may have a different style than you and not have devoted my free time to taking down the system, but my experience was the same as yours.

I agree that there is undue pressure exherted on distributors by thier upline to buy the books, tapes, etc even if you can’t afford it, you are never gunna get out ouf your rut unless you change your way of thiknking and the only way to change that is to put new inof in… here is a tape that will help you understand… No its not free no I won’t loan you mine, if you really want to succeed you haver to make some sacrifices along the way.

Translation — I’m not just out to help you, pay me now, feed your kids later.

The cost is way out of line since most of the tapes are recording of speeches you paid for once already when you went to a Rally or meeting… I was told about Brits recording equipment, a huge business cranking out tapes for his down line to buy from him… That’s where the real money is… go get em tiger, you get big enough in amway you too can have your own record lable — printing recordings of speeches you made – Ones that you required your people pay to go listen to when you gave the speach, — then you sell it to them in a few months and make more money for it, Then sell it to them again so they never forget how awesome you are and how close the dream is, then sell it again and again to all the people they recruit. Then just when the guy finally can’t handle it any longer, he quits and a new guy comes to an event to hear you speak … you can record that speach then as he grows in the business you can sell it to his distributrors.. Oh and you can sell the one you made at the meeting the first guy went to because motivation is never out of style and if you dont believe this you just have a negative attitude, no wonder you aren’t making it amyway…

Besides the numerous typos, my use of LOLs is a reflection of what I am doing as I type. I literally laugh out loud at times. Anyway, your input is appreciated, as it reinforces the rest of this website, but your lack of interest in helping to fix this problem is not.

Thanks for your input. Did you find anything that was not credible? We would like to know, because we consider everything on this blog to be credible, and if we need to clarify something, we will do it. Do you think it is appropriate to be angry/mocking when someone rips you off and scams you, or should you be cheerful and happy?

I am not sure how you can call Amway a scam. I am what they call a Prosumer, but I happen to have a downline who do build the business. I created an excel spreadsheet to determine my bonus checks, which more than covers what I spend on Amway products… and the checks are always 100% spot on, and occasionally more!

Scam? I say no. I say you were incompetent and would rather blame Amway than yourself for your failure by quitting. If anyone gets scammed, it’d be another IBO, but the Amway corporation, it’s pay structure and business practices are legit. IBO’s doing bad business is another issue and all industries have this. I just went to a restaurant the other day; they overcooked my steak. Instead of the manager offering to take the steak off the bill or offerering me another steak cooked med/rare as I requested, he argued with me and made me pay for it anyways… does this mean ALL restaurants are scams? No. Please use your brain and quit spreading these lies.

Look at this idiot’s claim why they don’t understand how I can say Amway is a scam, and on a day when Vemma was flushed down the toilet: http://www.scribd.com/doc/281860820/PI-Order-Vemma#download This idiot obviously can’t read for comprehension, as I have literally thousands of facts on this website backing up the claim! Instead, they use the tired, worn-out tagline of a “Prosumer” to cover up the scam they are being scammed by. THEN they think comparing their bonus to their Amway product cost means anything significant, and totally IGNORE all of the other overhead costs described throughout this website.

Scam? I say yes, and back it up with facts, not wild accusations of being incompetent. On the contrary, this website proves I am more than adequately competent. If they had done some reading before typing, they would also know I didn’t quit, I was terminated by Amway, and I am proud of that fact. 3.4% retail sales is FAR less than Vemma’s 14%, so it is FAR from legit. Blowing off the tool scam is another stupid comment, as is comparing the ATS to an overcooked steak. If I was given an overcooked steak, I would refuse to pay for it and walk out. This person needs to use their brain and quit spreading these lies. LOL

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